Cold
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Missing scene from 'Shuttlepod 1'.


**Disclaimer: Star Trek (plus all its intellectual property) is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended.**

**Beta'd by ArtisticMom2, to whom all due thanks!**

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Cold.

It was so cold in the shuttlepod now that a thick film of frost had formed over the instruments. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that the humans trapped inside were suffering accordingly.

They'd sat upright on the bench for as long as possible, huddling together to share warmth, and minimising the contact between their bodies and the framework of the shuttle. The emergency blankets did something – if not much – to insulate them from the air, but the metal was now icy enough to burn bare skin. The enemy outside was steadily and stealthily clawing its way through to them. It was only a question of whether it would succeed in time to beat their other enemy to the prize.

Suffocation.

He didn't bother to check the readouts any more. His lungs told him everything he needed to know. Every breath brought in less and less oxygen. He tried without much success to fight down a primeval panic, knowing that fear would accelerate his heart rate and increase the requirement for oxygen, which would in turn place additional demands on his lungs and initiate a vicious circle of ever-increasing demand and ever-decreasing supply.

_Should have taken my chances with the Navy. _In effect, he was going to drown, except that water wouldn't be involved. Oh, the irony was bitter. He'd have laughed, if it wouldn't have cost him oxygen. People said that once one stopped struggling, drowning was a peaceful way to die. He'd never been able to make himself believe it. Perhaps suffocating might have similarities eventually, but he hadn't got to that stage yet, if it existed. His alcohol-sodden mind might have accepted the fact of approaching death, but his body wasn't buying it.

His feet and hands had gone numb long ago. The fingers of his right hand still clutched the blanket around him, but there was no sensation, and any sudden movement would just tear the cloth out of his grip. Blood and feeling were retreating further and further into his core areas, trying to keep him alive, not knowing that they were fighting a losing battle.

Drowning would have been quicker, on reflection. A couple of minutes, at most. Quicker than that, perhaps, if the water was freezing. Water was so much more efficient at heat conduction than air.

Beside him, Trip's blond head was drooping forward. The American's breathing was laboured. Up till a while ago there had been at least some faint sensation of shared warmth from their sides pressing together, but that was gone now. Even the convulsive shivering had stopped. If he felt any last rage that he'd been denied a swift if horrible death in the airlock in order to endure this far slower and more agonising one now, he said nothing. Perhaps he didn't want to waste oxygen on that either.

_Enterprise_. Had anyone been watching? Hope was as frail as life, drifting in this vast and infinitely hostile environment. His grip on it had never been strong, and now it was failing fast. He tried to remember what the bridge looked like, but all he could think of was that it was warm. And his quarters: warm blankets, warm shower, warm clothes. Warm hands and feet. The gymnasium. Kept a little cooler, to encourage one to generate one's own heat by exercise; all the times when he'd taken it for granted that he'd been so hot that sweat ran off him. The mess. Hot food, hot drinks. Tea, sipped incautiously, burning his mouth. The armoury. Strictly regulated temperature, warm smooth surfaces of the missiles. Engineering. The warp engine. Warm, warm, warm.

And home. Earth. Long summer days when the sun was so hot you retreated ungratefully into the shade. Broiling beaches, where the sand burned your feet and the blue sea dazzled the eye, reflecting the sunlight. Then thick winter clothes, warm gloves, lined boots. Centrally heated flat, log fires. Mounded quilts on feather beds, soft warm female flesh snuggling up to him in the aftermath of sex. Mulled wine at Christmas, warm mince pies, turkey fresh out of the oven. Roast potatoes too hot to bite into. Christmas pudding, soused in brandy, burning with blue flames in the dish. He shut his eyes to see it all, in the despairing wish that the memories might recapture at least some of the sensation of ever being anything but freezing.

The sudden awareness of sliding weight against his side brought him back from the dream that was perilously close to becoming unconsciousness. Trip had passed out. The way his long frame hit the floor without even the attempt at cushioning his fall said that even the movement hadn't roused him. His blanket fell open. His face was relaxed in the escape from suffering. His mouth was blue with cold and lack of oxygen. His breathing had become slow and shallow.

The floor. Metal. That icy chill, burning through blanket and uniform.

Letting himself drop was surprisingly easy, though the landing was hard and graceless and the pain in his legs as they buckled underneath him was enough to wring out a moan. His body too must have been within moments of losing the capacity to support itself, and deprived of its prop it gave up the unequal struggle with hardly any resistance. Making his free left hand venture from whatever shelter his armpit afforded was harder; selfishly, it hung on to its illusions that rescue was still possible, that there was some kind of a future where it might still be wanted, that a universe still existed in which the cramped and lifeless fingers could be warm enough to dance with their old skill over the tactical controls.

The lack of oxygen was affecting all of his muscle control now. His co-ordination was shot to hell. He couldn't have hit a battle cruiser with a banjo if the ship's survival had depended on it.

Finally, reluctantly, the hand emerged. Shuddering with cold and cramp and fear, it crept towards Trip's blanket. Lifting the engineer back on to the bench was out of the question; now, when his ribs were starting to ache with the effort required to draw every breath, and when merely holding himself upright was becoming a task that required superhuman effort, that much strength was nothing more than a remote memory. But the blanket should be possible. At least drawing it a bit more tightly around his friend's chest would do something towards containing what little heat still lingered underneath it. It might be no more than a gesture, but it would be one more – probably the last – flap of that pennant of hope that Trip had flown so indomitably into the teeth of the gale.

But his fingers couldn't obey him. After a struggle he got them to unlock, but it was physically impossible for them to close on the blanket. They scraped helplessly on the grey wool, powerless and incompetent.

No help there.

He looked around the cabin. Nothing. They'd searched desperately long ago for anything that would help them to withstand the cold while they waited.

He had his own blanket.

He tried to be the kind of saint who gives up the only thing that's keeping him breathing in order to buy a friend a few more moments of life, but that was unfortunately beyond him. If it had been a matter of facing the muzzle of a loaded rifle, things would have been different. Stupid, but true. He didn't try to evaluate why. Perhaps he hadn't got the guts to face that kind of death. There again, perhaps – unlike Trip – he was just a selfish bastard.

The shortage of oxygen was starting to eat into his brain functions too. His thoughts were getting even more confused than the bourbon had left them. He was having trouble concentrating. And he was so bloody _tired_...

In despair he looked at the bench they'd fallen off. It might as well be a hundred metres high. He could never get back on it again. But even if he could have managed it by some miracle, he couldn't bring himself to try while Trip was still alive. By the time Trip was dead, it wouldn't matter.

The bench lids. They were clipped on. He forced himself to shuffle around and feel behind them. Two simple catches. Simple for functional fingers, that was. For a man with just one barely functional hand, now possessing the subtlety of movement of a lump hammer, they were anything but simple. For one thing, the metal was so cold that touching it burned his skin. He leaned against the leather, gasping for breath that he couldn't catch. His exhalations warmed the seat opposite his mouth; he pressed his lips to it, hoarding the small heat desperately.

Somehow, between luck and brute force and desperation, he knocked the catches loose and pulled the lid onto the floor. The exertion left him shaking, but he still had to get Trip on to it, insulated from that killing cold underneath him.

Pull. Push. Lift. _Breathe. Breathe. _Push. Pull. Turn. _Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. _That's it. Pull. Pull. _Gasp. Gasp. Vision going. Gasp. God, I'm so bloody cold. _Shove. _Don't be dead. If you're dead, so help me God, I'll kill you._

After a couple of moments he managed to stop making so much noise, so that he could hear the fainter sounds of Trip's breathing. _Good._

The bench lid wasn't wide enough for both of them. He looked longingly at the other one, but he knew when he was beaten. He hadn't the air or the strength or the time left.

The blanket was still gaping across Trip's chest. Only now the gap was even wider.

Regulations.

_Stuff regulations._

What would people think, when they were found?

_Who bloody cares? _Anyone who didn't understand had never been in this situation. Anyone who had would understand all too well. His earlier preoccupation with what he'd look like when the shuttle was finally found now felt absurd. Survival was more important than appearances. Not that he believed there was much hope of it, but the 'Grim Reaper' still had the duty to protect his ship's crew, no matter what his personal opinions on the matter were.

It was like climbing Everest. Each movement cost an eternity of effort, but somehow he managed to scramble himself partly on top of and partly alongside his friend, wrapping himself around the still, chill body and spreading what he could of his blanket to cover them both. He lowered his head so that his mouth rested against the icy motionless cheek; the phantom warmth of each remaining breath would warm it, rather than wasting itself on the empty, freezing air. And at least he was removed from the savagery of the floor. Here at the last extremity he had learned to be grateful for small mercies.

The shuttle lights were growing dim. At least, he thought they were. The headache that had been growing steadily worse was affecting his vision, perhaps. The drowsiness was getting worse too. He'd done all he could. Now it was up to fate. And _Enterprise._

Slowly, Malcolm Reed drifted away into the dark.

**The End.**

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